BRITISH anti terrorist officers fear the IRA is planning a general election "spectacular" following the bomb attacks on a railway line in Wilmslow, Cheshire, early yesterday.
Although Commander John Grieve, head of the anti terrorist squad, refused to discuss the political ramifications of the railway station bombings, he admitted his officers were on a heightened alert.
No one was injured by the two small bombs, planted in signal boxes at the end of the station's platform. Although the IRA has not claimed responsibility, police say the devices "bore the hallmarks of the terrorists". They believe they were aimed at causing maximum disruption by paralysing the west coast main line from Glasgow to London.
Mr Grieve said it was too early to say whether the explosions were linked to last June's massive IRA bomb attack on Manchester city centre or whether the IRA was deliberately targeting the northwest of England.
The assistant chief constable for special operations, Mr Ian Moody, who is in charge of the investigation, described the bombings as "despicable". He condemned the IRA for its "imprecise" code warnings, stating that it was only the prompt action of the police which prevented casualties.
"Everyone's collective efforts prevented a tragedy. We were alerted before Christmas of a possible IRA threat to the UK mainland, although not specifically the north west, so have been on alert," he said.
In a separate incident, Doncaster railway station was closed from early morning until 1.30 p.m. yesterday after a man with an Irish accent, claiming to be from the IRA, made two calls at 5.30 a.m., saying there was a bomb at the station. The station was evacuated within 30 minutes but nothing was found.
The Wilmslow alert came at 5.32 a.m. when a local woman, in her 70s, received the first coded warning, stating that a bomb would explode in 30 minutes at Wilmslow police station. As officers attempted to evacuate the nearby residential area, a man with an Irish accent rang Altrincham Priory hospital at 5.40 a.m., warning that a bomb had been planted at Wilmslow railway station.
While fire officers and police searched the railway station, the first bomb exploded at 6.30 a.m. As they set up a security cordon, a second device exploded at 7.05 a.m., just 50 metres away. A woman walking her dog and a signal man who were nearby were unhurt.
Mr Moody said he believed the timing of the explosions was a deliberate attempt to injure the emergency services as they dealt with the wreckage caused by the first bomb.
"Over 80 people were evacuated to a nearby leisure centre. How ever, the residents criticised the police for actually moving them in the direction of the bombs. "It was an unreal situation. We were woken at dawn, told to go to the centre and then heard a loud big boom. We were closer to the bombs than we would have been if we had stayed at home," said one resident.
However, Mr Moody insisted the mistake was due to the imprecise nature of the warnings and stressed that he did not think the elderly woman who received the bomb warning had misunderstood the location of the bomb. "The warnings were imprecise and reached us via a complicated route."
Although Cheshire police sources stated they were "amazed" that the IRA chose to announce its bomb warning through a member of the public, it is understood the woman's telephone number is only one digit different from the local police stations.
The woman, who has not been identified for her protection, spent the day being interviewed by anti terrorist officers.
The residents were only allowed to re enter their homes late yesterday afternoon following a finger tip search by forensic officers.
Rush hour trains on the main lines between London and Scotland were disrupted because of the bombs. A Railtrack spokesman, Mr Bernard Travis, said he expected the disruption to continue for several days because of the police investigation despite the "minimal" damage to the line.